All too often an undefined sense of righteousness fills the rhetoric of newsmakers on all sides of the political spectrum, leaving behind a vacuum of actual ethics. Politicians can’t possibly please everyone they represent, so sensationalist claims of lacks of morality are an easy tactic.

Unfortunately the recent Supreme Court decision allowing even further corporate influence over our politicians will put their ethics, and our patience, still further to the test.

Your point is well taken and well explained. We certainly do nothing to warn, even to point out to, our newly electeds that there are a lot of things that are marginably acceptable in private life which become career kilers in public life. One can understand and have some empathy for a few of these neophites, but Charlie Rangel has been there before. Lots of times. Old behavior patterns are often hard to break.

Corporations setup PACs to contribute to politicians in both parties to gain access. Contributors are going to get more access because that is the only product the politician has to sell in exchange for corporate contributions. Special interests will contribute to candidates who support their special position. Again the politician must maintain this position to get the special interest contribution regardless of his/her own position or where the majority of their constituents stand. The occasional free vacation or free dinner just becomes a gratuity among comrades.

When I was a design engineer, equipment sales representatives would occasionally take me to lunch or deliver a gift bottle of wine. I accepted these as compensation for the time I gave them and in the spirit of their gratitude that I was willing to patiently listen to their sales pitch. There was never the implication by either party that it was a commitment to steer business their way. Although, I can see someone could perceive this was the case or some salespersons wish it was the case.

In the mean time, the revolving door continues to be a huge conflict of interest problem. People enter government, make their connections, and walk into high paying privates jobs selling their potential bureaucrat influence to the highest bidder. It is not the corruption of the high-profile politicians still in government that is the biggest problem. It is what goes on under the radar via government procurements. We’re not talking free golf trip. Just look at the Boeing- USAF fuel tanker contract the had to be retracted because the purchasing officer became a Boeing executive within months of the award. Or the bank executives that get appointed into Fed regulatory positions.

We don’t really know whether any of these guys actually did the things they are accused of or not — and we probably never will. More than likely, this stuff is so commonplace that the three culprits were only doing what they’ve see their mentors doing for decades. The difference this time is that people even more powerful than they wanted them out of the way, so this time the offense is punished. How else to explain the amazing ethical lapses of Bill Clinton, yet in his case, the powers who take it upon themselves to decide such things decreed that he was just the victim of a “vast, right wing conspiracy” and gave him an ethical pass.

I’d like to think that the careers of powerful people could swing on minor ethical lapses, but I doubt that’s really the case. It’s just so hard to know the truth that I hesitate to draw global ethical lessons from any of these political games.

The NHS may not be perfect but as a ‘free at point of need service’ they are life savers even for those you might regard as having self-inflicted their work injuries and/or self-harming quality of life.

Sure there are waiting lists for elective surgery but, for those where urgency is required the majority will receive excellent care even if the hostipals can be a little scruffy and not too clean around the edges.

Of course the real answer is to nuke the projects, trailer parks and in our case the sink-council estates and other social housing – job done, sorted just leaving the economically active net contributors but then where are you going to find your melon pickers or potatoe riddlers or shrimp and winkle sorters other than from the LDC’s that will soon become the MDC’s as we regress into solely call centre and service providers for them when it once again becomes cheeper back home.

Sorry not about “socialised medicine” but humanistic and functionally equitable and holistic social engineering as we appoach a wider and deeper “hourglass economy” of haves and havenots when the havenots will adopt the recent trend toward direct action and asymetric warfare within bourders rather than across them.

The days of “I’m allright jack pull up the ladder” are over and without an increasing level of social let alone risk intellegence environmental and otherwise our comfortable little lives will be potentially short lived…….

Have a nice day.

Far more people will suffer an early death under a system such as that in Canada or the U.K., where waiting lists for treatment are long, qualify of care suffers, and innovation is discouraged. See the survival rates for all the various cancers in the U.S. versus the rates in countries with socialized medicine — we do better across the board. If we let this country’s socialist minority destroy our health care system, there will be no place for those seeking the best of care to flee, like the Canadian minister did recently to cure a heart problem.